Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Table Service podcast where we'll dish on all things support, success and beyond with the people and companies building the future of customer experience.
Table Service is presented by Tavolo Consulting and I'm your host, Jordan Hooker.
Ana Alicia Segueros is a global support and operations leader with cross industry background in technology, the art world and online marketplaces.
She's passionate about scaling teams, enabling customer success through AI and building inclusive communities. She leads the global technical support team at Peak, a platform whose mission is to connect the world through experiences. Before joining the tech sector, Ana Alicia built her career in the art world, working across online marketplaces and museums, bringing a creative and empathetic lens to customer experience.
She's a dedicated champion of community building, serving as a founding member of Peaks Women's ERG and actively contributing to Georgetown University's alumni leadership. Ana Alicia blends operational excellence with a people first philosophy to drive meaningful and measurable impact. Ana Alicia, welcome to the table.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Jordan, thank you so much for having me today. It's such a pleasure to speak with you today.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for joining us. Really excited for our discussion. Before we hop into that, let's just take a few minutes for our listeners who may not be familiar with you to hear a little bit more about you. Let's hear the story.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, you gave a wonderful introduction.
I am currently the director of support at Peak, a online marketplace and technical support team that actually supports a B2B software. We're a ticketing service and so we plug into the back end of different tour operators, experience providers, being able to really make sure that they're running their business not just from the ticketing and the scheduling, but also the back end booking such as bookkeeping and whatnot. It's exciting to be able to speak with you today.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Thank you so much for sharing that. So our primary topic today is around bpos. We'll have a few other lenses that will view this through, but really excited to talk about that as we have not really covered that much in this season. So the decision to outsource is kind of scary. I think for a lot of folks, the thought of the worry of, you know, losing control or not really having an idea and full visibility into what's going on, making sure you choose the right partner. So let's start with this. How do you make the case for outsourcing to a bpo? Maybe first to yourself as a support leader, but then also to to make a business case to your leadership team that it is time to make a decision like that.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Jordan, what a good question. BPOs, like you said, can be scary. I have to say it's almost considered a taboo word. Right. People don't necessarily want to hear it. People are scared of what could be the potential outcome. And I know that for me it is something that sometimes my mind wanders to the worst case scenario and then that is something my leadership team would see. The team would see. But we know that BPOs can really raise skepticism for teams, not to mention for customers as well.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: The element of it is that it can be costly. However, it's changing right before our eyes. And I think, Jordan, you've had people talk about BPOs.
It's tough to come to the decision of needing to make a change. For us in particular, at peak, seasonality was really a major factor. We have thousands of end users, many who operate seasonally. We have holiday light show tour operators who aren't necessarily hosting their light shows in the middle of the summer, or perhaps a haunted house operator isn't running it in the middle of February. But a BPO really allowed us to flex demand without overcommitting internally. I think I first knew it was time that we needed to have a BPO when we had exhausted other scaling strategies. I had tested a follow the sun shift model. I had expanded our talent pool geographically. But at the end of the day, because we have over 70% first time touch ticket resolution, BPO was great to be able to flex during our quote unquote busy months. I think a lot of support leaders can relate to having ebbs and flows in their seasonality.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: And because of that, a BPO was really, really the right, the right choice for us at the time.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: So when thinking about that conversation, how you start that conversation with your leadership team, what do you think is the most important, important thing? I think we all know that first impressions on these types of conversations typically drive outcomes for whether or not that is successful. So what do you think is the first step in that process of making that business case?
[00:04:38] Speaker B: When describing to leadership the need for a different solution such as a bpo, I really think it's having the confidence in your decision as a support leader. Right. It's being able to kind of lay out the steps of how it is going to be able to happen. Presumably you've already had success in being able to onboard team members and being able to perhaps even work with an eor, an employer of record to expand the geographic talent pool. But now with a BPO, you're going to be able to implement some of those Same changes for us. It was really wonderful to be able to make a case for it when I highlighted how many of our tickets are really just solved with a first touch resolution. First touch.
A lot of our tickets are low discretion, very predictable, very repetitive, and because of that, it was a great opportunity for us to be able to scale the team while we're also making sure that the tickets are going to be handled in a positive way, in a good way, and still not losing that, that human touch or that ability to still maintain the conversation.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: Sure.
Now, before we started recording, you had mentioned a particular topic around this that you were interested in digging into a little more, which is particularly BPOs versus AI. The things that you have just mentioned are often the things that AI technology companies are coming to us as support leaders and saying, hey, my tool, my AI agent can solve your problem. You know, these first touch tickets that you can knock out in one touch, super repetitive. We can solve it. How do you think you make a distinction as a support leader between the decision to go either to a BPO or to some type of AI solution? Or perhaps a mix of both?
[00:06:29] Speaker B: Ooh, Jordan, here we go. As I said at the beginning, BPO can be a taboo word. AI can be a taboo word. Right. But as you mentioned, there's, there's things that are coming about that are presented to us and ever changing right before our eyes. I really do think that a team structure sets up the foundation for the culture that you create as a leader.
Having a BPO is going to be beneficial in one case. Having AI for your team is going to be beneficial in other cases. But what I really think is the key is knowing which one to lean on and when, as well as how to position with your customers or the end users. But at the end of the day, I really do think, and this is what peak employees having the most effective strategy today can truly involve. Both.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think that that's one of the things that, that I think I've struggled with as I think about what pieces that, that a human agent should handle, could handle versus some AI solution tying all that in. Though we talk about how this is this topic, both of these can be kind of a taboo word in the support world. Thinking about our teams now, how do you go to your team and start to have a conversation around the fact that, hey, we're, we're going to start employing a BPO to help us with this or we're going to start employing AI to help us with these pieces. I know for a lot of team Members that will bring up some anxiety around, well, is this just going to re, this is going to replace my job or is this going to help me do my job better? How do you think we should go about starting those conversations with teams to help them partner with us in that instead of being scared of what that could mean for them?
[00:08:07] Speaker B: That is so true. It's something that has to be intentional. I have had success, success with it as well as failures.
And I think many of us are going to be able to relate. There's decisions that are often made that have reasoning that need to be taken one step further when explaining to your team. Right. In many cases. And the type of leader that I like to have is being able to be transparent with the team, being able to involve individuals. As it comes to the testing process of AI was really instrumental and getting the buy in from individuals, we were able to tweak refine it, make it even better based on the, on, on the use cases that the team was able to provide. Now when it comes to a bpo, it's a little bit more difficult. Right. Because these are individuals on the other side of a screen who aren't necessarily going to go through a trial and, and period like AI would or a testing period.
So it was much more involvement with my frontline managers being able to involve them in the process as we went through RFPs, being actually vet the agents ourselves, being able to see how is it that they would fit as well as how they would be trained. One of my individual managers was actually able to take on kind of more of the onboarding process and that was really, really successful in bringing able to again create that relationship but also secure the buy in from the team. Because as we know things can trickle down from managers. Right. I would say good feelings as well as negativity. So as long as we start to craft that positivity around it, it can be, it can be a good, a good start.
But Jordan, you did allude to kind of how scary it can be, right. When individuals say this might take over my job. This is going to lessen my opportunity for growth.
I've heard that from the team, I've heard that from my managers, I've heard that from other peers in the company or peers across the industry of saying how are you going to control this on your team and how are you going to maintain your team members and create kind of your retention?
And it is something that I again like to be transparent but also tell individuals that I am not necessarily removing them from the work. I Want to remove the boring work from that?
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: AI and BPOs are able to supplement the work that our agents are doing. I hired agents for a reason and I didn't hire them to solve how do I change my password questions time and time again.
I hired them for more complex, interesting work and that's really what I want to be able to get in front of them.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: Thinking of our teams, then we obviously all spend a significant amount of time building a culture within our teams within our companies.
That particularly I think for really any organization, but especially startups, we spend a lot of time on this like we are, we're passionate about it. Obviously some companies take this to a, in a direction that makes no sense. They, they have the ping pong tables and they think somehow that's culture. I'd rather have a slightly higher paycheck than or better benefits than a ping pong table. But you know, can we get both? That's great. But you know, companies that really do want to think about their culture and how they care for their employees, how they help their employees grow and develop both personally and professionally. We work really hard at those things.
I think for a lot of people, sport leaders and then potentially other leaders within the company, there would be a fear if we bring in a bpo. How could that affect our culture when we don't necessarily have as direct of a control as to what's happening inside of that organization? We're partnering with a different organization now that may not share all the ideals of our culture and thinking of our culture. How do you protect your culture as an organization when you bring in a different company to partner in this way?
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Culture definitely needs to be protected. It is something that support leaders should be building up and really being able to empower team members with. So I have to say that culture at peak is all about connection. Our mission is literally connecting the world through experiences. And even as we've grown as a company and been able to grow the team, I've also recognized that culture is something that we need to protect by design rather than trying to blend everything together. Right. In many ways, how we oftentimes will choose a vendor for a particular purpose because of the payout speed or because of the pricing or because of the relationship with the customer success manager. It is something that when selecting a bpo, I was very, very aware of how they would fit in.
There's a lot of different structures that come about, whether it be involvement in the hiring, lack of involvement in IT hiring and training as an aspect something that you want to have control versus be hands off. There's a lot of opportunities to really find the right partner that is going to set you up for success.
For, for me internally, what I've done is actually maintained my group separate and this is intentional. Our BPO team members don't join my larger support team meetings or really any of our social aspects. Instead I focus on ensuring clear transparency, structured escalations, paths, alignment on performance expectations. Right. Because the goal is to have our BPO execute efficiently while allowing my team member and my team members internally to focus on higher value, complex work. But as we already talked about, one thing that really worked well is ensuring the transparency between the teams without really forcing integration.
Now perhaps some of our listeners might actually think otherwise and I've actually done it on the other side, right, of being able to bring in the BPO team members into the folds, call them in some cases perhaps even an employee. And like in our case it would be peeksters, as we call anyone who works at Peak a peekster, bringing them into the team meetings. And it really just depends on the direction and again, kind of what you want to be able to create. But at minimum a simple who is who page can actually help humanize the name behind Slack or the Salesforce chatter or in that escalation path. And it's something that needs to be introduced right from the get go for any, any new hire because you never know who's going to interact with who and it's nice to be able to have that clarity.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. Now let's say we've gotten to the point where we know this is the next step. We've got sign off from our leadership team that we should begin to investigate these possibilities and what could be out there. How do you go about choosing a BPO to bring in to your organization?
[00:14:51] Speaker B: What a good question. And there could certainly be a whole conversation on this. I have to say that it can be very similar to hiring an employee. Right. Hiring an individual. There definitely should be a lengthy process in selecting what we've gone ahead and done is have RFPs where we secure information from potential vendors, potential BPOs where they lay out to us some of the details that would normally be in a contract, as well as what does it look like for the hiring process, what does it look like for the teaching aspect or the training. But it's, it is something that is very lengthy and I have to say that there needs to be involvement, not just from myself as a support leader, but there has to be involvement from the finance department as well as A advocate for you already on the exec team perhaps, who helps manage your budget to be able to have an understanding from that perspective of what it might look like. I really have to say that I've always found my BPOs through the networks that I'm already in. There's nothing better than having a word of mouth recommendation and being able to really capitalize on that. Because if they're, if there's someone that's having a positive experience, you can build off of that and also learn firsthand of perhaps what didn't go well. But I think initially there is a step also of brainstorming with the team.
Now, in my current case, I actually inherited the BPO that we're working with and it's been a wonderful relationship. But if you're starting from scratch, it's beneficial to actually have a brainstorming session with stakeholders. Right? Not that not just the decision makers, but also those that are going to be interacting and perhaps even managing the relationship of. How important is it to have a lead for the BPO agents? How important is it to have a QA individual for the BPO agents? Being able to lay this out of your must haves and your wants and your doesn't really matter is going to be crucial.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: Crucial, yes, absolutely. And I think that's a key element of, as we talked about, culture. How do we make sure our teams feel comfortable with this? Bringing them into that process, I think is such a critical piece. Let them be a part of the thinking and the decision.
Now, as we move into thinking about implementation, what does that look like both with the BPO and then even thinking of this wider scope of how do we involve our wider team in that process?
What does it look like to implement with a bpo?
[00:17:09] Speaker B: I have to say that implementation for us has always been a series of milestones.
It is not something that is, you know, few meetings and you wipe your hands clean and everything's done.
On the contrary, it is an ongoing relationship. There has to be a introduction to the company, an introduction to the team and an introduction to the client as well, so that there can be an understanding of what is going on. Now, depending on what the BPO is going to be handling, implementation is going to look very different. Right. I've had some BPOs just do more administrative work, very low discretion, kind of behind the scenes to make sure that things are running smoothly. That's going to look very different than having a BPO that is going to be handling phone calls even in my offline hours. Right. Just being able to extend our support hours.
So it's something that needs to be tailored to the bpo.
But there's always a component of being able to have that managerial involvement, that lead involvement, of being able to kind of showcase and repurpose some of the materials that have already been shared when onboarding a new hire and just adapting it to kind of take it one one level more personalized to a bpo. But I think the biggest thing with implementing a BPO is kind of setting the parameters right off bat of when to contact you as a employer, quote unquote or kind of as the manager overseeing and what do you want to be notified for as well as just making sure that there's a regular cadence for check ins. I think that that is good to set that expectation right off the bat.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Thinking about post implementation, what does it look like to to then measure the success of a bpo? Whether or not they are meeting the agreed upon milestones, whether or not they are driving quality and efficiency as you intended them to do, and then as they are doing that, how do you help build on that? What are the steps a company should take to address those things?
[00:19:11] Speaker B: Measuring success with BPO has to be clearly defined right from the get go, right in the same way that we set okrs as a company, we have KPIs for our team. Perhaps we even bonus our support agents on quality or CSAT or items per per day, per hour, per month.
It's something that I also have translated for the BPO as well. Making sure that they have those achievable goals, but then also visibility into it along the way. I think one of the biggest adjustments that I had when thinking about measuring success for a BPO was realizing that BPO teams tend to operate with a lower level of autonomy. We quickly realized that I needed more defined workflows, more SLAs, clearly defined escalation paths to be successful.
Once we put that in place, it really improved efficiency and clarity for everyone and ultimately made their work even better, I would say.
But BPOs can be incredibly successful when things are laid out for them.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: I'd be curious your thoughts on I'll say a company has implemented a BPO and they have helped achieve the things that we are looking for. Your company continues to grow.
Would there ever be a time where it would be appropriate to then bring that work in house? And how do you think a company might even think about doing that?
[00:20:40] Speaker B: Ooh, I think there would certainly be a period of adaptability. Right. I think the greatest benefit that a BPO can bring is just that, being able to scale the team size for instance.
But if it is something where the work stream is going to vastly change, it should be brought in house. Especially if there's something that is very unknown of how or what the direction is going to be. And I'm talking at a bigger scale scale than just perhaps like a newer version of your app or a new feature that is has been asked for for. For months in a year and is rolling out. But just different strategic choice is is when I would want to bring in the work stream that a BPO would normally handle. But I will also be transparent and say that, you know, AI has been able to take on some of the work that normally I had outsourced to a BPO team.
And the beauty of it is that if there are the resources internally, you can even have more control for it, more control over it because you're able to really build out that workflow in a way that is going to eliminate human error in some cases and even have it programmed and not dependent on someone's availability.
So there's there, there can be benefit to it and something that I'm. That I'm starting to see even within my own t right now for sure.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: Now thinking about as leaders we're, we're used to qaing our agents, understanding what's happening in their interactions, coaching to issues we see driving quality and efficiency. How do you do that with a bpo?
[00:22:19] Speaker B: Good question.
So I've seen this done in a number of different ways and I know that some BPOs will even offer a QA lead or someone from their team on their site side being able to QA. Now those results are shared. But sometimes motivation can not be aligned with yours. Right. Is it a matter of just following process or is it a matter of reiterating and creating that more personalized experience? It really depends on the work at hand.
What we like to do is really bring it in house, making sure that we're able to see firsthand because you can't necessarily coach someone if you don't know the type or the quality of work that they're doing.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: And being able to see how is it that they can grow. Certainly for some tickets it's, it's very predictable and you know, we have the macro laid out according to our style guide and the verbiage that we want and not too many exclamation points and whatnot. But then for the other ones that may that have or require a little bit more problem solving, those are the types of tickets that we definitely want to ensure where we're being able to help the individual grow and be able to see what is it that things are coming about in a closer way.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: I know how critical it is to make sure even if we are using AI technology, it's one of the things I'm thinking about right now in a major implementation of as I'm using AI. Is it matching the quality of the work that this, this person could interact with my team and experience. So I would imagine the same is also true as you bring in BPO agents to make sure that the customer should really have no concept of. I'm talking to someone other than this team from this organization. And so how do we drive that quality?
[00:23:58] Speaker B: Correct, correct. And I think that's something that our end users and many customers across the board don't realize. Am I talking to a BPO agent? Someone that is, you know, employed by an eor, someone that is a in house domestic agent, or are they talking to AI? At the end of the day, we're trying to all provide a delightful experience. Experience. Right. One that is going to keep them coming back as a support leader. It's just a matter of deciding how is it that you want to provide that. And if you talk about the quality, I mean it's so key and so important to have a pulse on, on it across the board of how it is. And what's interesting is you can even bring AI to do some of that qa. Right. It's something that I know I am personally in very early stages of rolling out for my team, of being able to see how do we get more feedback right off the bat, but also be able to gain more insight. And AI is a powerful tool to do that. Yes, we're starting to use AI to QA our agents and provide feedback, but then also be able to use AI to QA the AI. So it's, it's something that I'm personally very excited about and think that there's a lot to dig into and being able to see the growth from that and extract learnings is going to be incredibly valuable.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. And for any of our listeners who might be interested in digging more into that topic, our very first episode of Table service was with a company called Syncly who are doing exactly that work. Fabulous group of folks who are building great tools. And even this week Intercom announced their new CX Sentiment tool that is built into their solution, which I know everybody is talking about this week creating those tools. So I'm Very excited as well for what it looks like to use AI to help us drive more quality with less lift individually. As a manager with a small team and a lot to do, I can use all the help I can get. So, last question here. What advice would you give to someone who's really starting early on this journey? They're just beginning this, they're thinking about this. What advice would you give to them?
[00:26:01] Speaker B: I would say as a support leader, you need to be intentional from day one about how you structure your team teams. It can be really tempting to treat outsourcing as just an extra set of hands or AI as your first line of defense that we'll figure out soon. But in reality, if I could go back, I would remind myself that outsourcing isn't simply about adding more headcount or blending teams, it's all about aligning them.
And with AI, I would say there's no need to rush it because it will be there and you can improve.
It doesn't need to be perfect on day one. You just need to be intentional about it.
I would also want to define what success looks like, establish those clear boundaries across teams and make sure that both sides have tools to succeed, because that's really what makes scaling sustainable, whether it is with a BPO or with AI.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.
Well, thanks for walking us through this. I think this conversation has been incredibly valuable, particularly for folks as we just talked about starting on that journey of considering is it time for us to take this type of a step.
But as we wrap up this conversation, any other closing thoughts you'd like to share with our listeners about this topic or anything else that's on your mind?
[00:27:21] Speaker B: Jordan, this is such an exciting time for the CX world, especially for the travel and hospitality industry of where Peak is being able to see individuals experience these and interact with new technology is huge. And being at the forefront of it, it's very, very exciting. I'm only looking forward to what is to come.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: Well, if folks were interested in getting in touch with you, what would be the best way for them to connect with you?
[00:27:49] Speaker B: Best way to reach me is actually via LinkedIn.
I'm a very active individual on LinkedIn, always open to a conversation and look forward to meeting others.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: Yeah, wonderful. Well, hey, thank you so much again for this conversation. I think it's going to be incredibly valuable to share with our listeners and thank you so much for joining us here at the table.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Wonderful. Thank you, Jordan.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: Yeah, you as well.
You've been listening to the Table Service podcast. You can find out more about today's guest in the show notes below.
The Table Service podcast is presented by Tableau Consulting, hosted by Jordan Hooker, music by Epidemic Sound.
